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Shirley Smith was one of the most remarkable New Zealanders of the 20th century, a woman whose lifelong commitment to social justice, legal reform, gender equality and community service left a profound legacy. She was born in Wellington in 1916. While her childhood was clouded by loss - her mother died when she was three months old and her beloved father, lawyer and later Supreme Court Judge David Smith, served overseas during the war - she had a privileged upbringing. She studied classics at Oxford University, where she threw herself into social, cultural and political activities. Despite contracting TB and spending months in a Swiss clinic, she graduated with a good Second and an intellectual and moral education that would guide her through the rest of her life. She returned to New Zealand when war broke out, and taught classics at Victoria and Auckland University Colleges, before marrying eminent economist and public servant Dr W.B. Sutch in 1944, and giving birth to a daughter in 1945. She kept her surname - unusual at the time - and poured her energy into issues of human rights and social causes. She qualified as a lawyer at the age of 40, and in her career of 40 years broke down many barriers, her relationship with the Mongrel Mob epitomising her role as a champion of the marginalised and vulnerable. In 1974, Bill Sutch was arrested and charged with espionage. After a sensational trial he was acquitted by a jury, but the question of his guilt has never been settled in the court of public opinion. Shirley had reached her own political turning point in 1956, with Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin and the Hungarian crisis, but she remained loyal to her husband, and the ongoing controversy weighed on her later years. Shirley Smith: An Examined Life tells the story of a remarkably warm and generous woman, one with a rare gift for frankness, an implacable sense of principle, and a personality of complexity and formidable energy. Her life was shaped by some of the most turbulent currents of the 20th century, and she in turn helped shape her country for the better.

An authoritative insider's perspective, this book penned by the governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand chronicles the global financial and economic meltdown. A well-researched and dynamic firsthand account, it captures the drama of the events—from the overheated markets of 2007 through the collapse of investment banks and crises in multiple economies to the fragile recovery in New Zealand and the world in 2010—as politicians, bankers, and government officials struggled to deal with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This updated edition also reveals how New Zealand grappled with the impact of debt crises in the United States and Europe as well as with the devastating effects of the Christchurch earthquakes.

Originally published by Myriad Editions.

En cinq temps et un seul mouvement, ce livre va d'une promesse à la consécration. Un flux qui va d'une aptitude jusqu'à la maturité. De l'évidence d'un talent précoce à l'oeuvre accomplie. En cinq chapitres, il montre comment débute un goût pour une imagerie qui se trouve en phase avec son époque mais qui évolue vite vers l'expression de sentiments variés, jusqu'à l'angoisse du temps qui passe. Car Sarah sait d'instinct que les pétales tombent trop vite, que le printemps n'a qu'un temps, qu'il ne faut pas se fier aux apparences, et que cet oeil silencieusement complice qu'est l'appareil permet de retenir, de préserver l'instant choisi, et lui donner la forme qui l'exprime à l'acmé de sa rareté. Rare est le mot qui convient pour tous ces moments fixes au plus fort de l'émotion. ou la mer et les ciels prétendent à l'infini, où le regard d'une femme, la douceur d'un pelage, l'harmonie d'un accord, sont les bonheurs de la vie, - même si Sarah Moon sait que le ver est dans le fruit. Ce qu'elle a toujours su.